


steady love

by milkdaze (flowerstems)



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:09:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6190792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerstems/pseuds/milkdaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she’s speaking in that quick, hard beat—she’s panicked, she's terrified again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	steady love

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [#kissyourgirl commentathon](http://femslashbb.livejournal.com/12935.html). also posted[ here.](http://femslashbb.livejournal.com/12935.html?thread=199559#t199559)

the last time trish saw jessica it was a year ago. she was terrified, shaking open in a way trish never thought possible, and there wasn't any blood on her hands but jessica kept staring at them in horror, kept trying to _wash them clean._

trish cleans her up, tries to put her back together. she lets jessica sleep on her lap on her couch, cradling jessica’s head in her arms against her chest, and jessica tells her what happened when she disappeared. who happened, what he did, what he made her do.

but she left, even though he screamed at her to stay.

trish lets her talk it out. jessica doesn't go into detail, doesn't tell trish every single thing, but she tells her enough. that's when trish swears to herself: no matter what, she won't let him get away with what he's done. not to jessica, not to anyone else. she hopes he burns in hell.

she lets jessica stay as long as she wants, until she feels like she can hold herself together again. she folds herself into trish’s side one night, quiet and steady, for the first time in a long time. she cradles trish’s face in her hands, her fingers are cold and trembling as they rub small patterns into the skin of trish’s jaw, and jessica kisses her, slow and warm and careful. she tastes like whiskey, strong and burning into trish’s mouth.

the next morning jessica is gone. she doesn’t writetextcall for a year.

it hurts, but trish understands. sometimes she doesn’t, but she tells herself she understands. jessica saved trish before, now she’s saving herself. trish understands.

now, jessica is standing on her balcony.

it hurts now, too. seeing jessica, hearing her voice after so long. she’s speaking in that quick, hard beat—she’s panicked, she's terrified again.

trish wants to soothe her, wants to fold her back onto her lap and kiss her calm, but that's not what jessica needs right now.

so trish gives her what she needs. she's so happy to help, she pushes a bit too hard— _i don't want the goddamn door._

_yes, jess, but i want you safe._

_i’m not safe as long as he's alive._

_yes, but having the door won't hurt, right?_

jessica gives in, she tends to do that when it comes to trish, and it swells her heart to burst with affection.

 

 

 

the first time she falls under his influence she understands, intimately, the reason jessica was so terrified every time he was mentioned, every time someone who even looked like him was mentioned. trish wants to be strong, for herself, for jessica, so she stays. she helps jessica fight. 

the last time she falls under his influence, jessica tells her she loves her, for the second time that day, for the first time in a long time. then jessica snaps his neck and trish understands, intimately, the reason jessica never gave up despite being terrified. that hope, that happiness, that freedom. it’s worth every night spent in fear, every trip to the hospital—everything. because they’re free.

jessica’s finally free.

and the world doesn’t become a utopia. corruption doesn’t disappear. she still doesn’t talk to her mother. but this. she gets jessica in the car, before going to meet hogarth, and she cradles jessica’s face in her hands. the same way they both have so many times.

  
she can’t stop crying, saying thank you, saying it’s over, for both of them. she kisses jessica, quick and messy between her sobbing and it’s embarrassing but it’s jessica. jessica strokes her hair and kisses her, a long, steadying kiss, and she tells her _i love you_ again and again. her words are quiet and warm. the approaching sirens are deafening.


End file.
